by Mr Link » October 24, 2016, 10:34 am
Yes. The AIS transmitter on the ship transmits a latitude and longitude, along with the MMSI number which identifies the ship. This gets picked up by a shore-based radio receiver, which uploads the data, to either a public or private database on the internet. Then ship tracking programs, like Marine Traffic regularly pole these databases for new information, and import it into their own database. There it is referenced to their database of vessel names and then processed into a format that can be displayed on a mapping program.
Each one of these steps requires digital communication and that provides an opportunity for electronic or software glitches to corrupt the data. Showing a false location isn't the most common error, but it does happen rather frequently if you monitor AIS enough. More frequently you see locations assigned to the wrong ship, outdated locations shown as current locations, and items such as ship name, speed and bearing obviously incorrect.
The good thing in all this: I doubt the officers on the Algoway cared at all, since they knew where they were the entire time.
Yes. The AIS transmitter on the ship transmits a latitude and longitude, along with the MMSI number which identifies the ship. This gets picked up by a shore-based radio receiver, which uploads the data, to either a public or private database on the internet. Then ship tracking programs, like Marine Traffic regularly pole these databases for new information, and import it into their own database. There it is referenced to their database of vessel names and then processed into a format that can be displayed on a mapping program.
Each one of these steps requires digital communication and that provides an opportunity for electronic or software glitches to corrupt the data. Showing a false location isn't the most common error, but it does happen rather frequently if you monitor AIS enough. More frequently you see locations assigned to the wrong ship, outdated locations shown as current locations, and items such as ship name, speed and bearing obviously incorrect.
The good thing in all this: I doubt the officers on the Algoway cared at all, since they knew where they were the entire time.